Preserving Small Towns
by Bill Lofquist

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Published by Clarion Publications, Geneseo, NY

Big Boxes create economic displacement, not development (January 26, 2006)

“The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.” - G.K. Chesterton

Above is my new favorite quote. It is particularly apt as an introduction to this column in that it describes well the situation in which find ourselves. I think most people, including people on both sides of the issue here in Geneseo, recognize that big boxes have plenty of shortcomings. They are too big, out of scale and out of tune in small towns.
They are hard on local businesses and on the families, relationships, and communities sustained by those businesses. They create huge traffic burdens. They usually pay low wages, even within the generally low wage retail sector. They provide few benefits or protections to employees. Their profits are exported out of town.
We would probably rather have other businesses come to town. Light industry and professional services provide higher wages, stable taxes, and fewer demands on our infrastructure. Coupled with the college, county government, health care, and locally-owned businesses, these types of new businesses would provide for stability and growth.
However, these new employers have not been coming to town (or to most anywhere else upstate). Waiting for them, we become restless. We want to grow. We need to grow to meet the needs of our children and to pay our bills.
Tired of waiting, we may mistake action for improvement. In Chesterton's terms, we confuse progress and growth. In the process, we risk becoming poorer by leaving behind those qualities most important to who we are.
Compounding the problem is the evidence that the benefits we seek ? jobs and taxes ? are far less than we may imagine, even before they are weighed against the costs.
An economic impact analysis of a proposed Wal-Mart in Greenfield, Massachusetts, estimated that the 177 jobs it would provide would be offset by 148 jobs lost from other businesses.
A study in Iowa estimated that 84% of the sales at a new Wal-Mart would come at the expense of existing businesses. When the same question was asked of a Wal-Mart proposed in Vermont, it was concluded that 76% of Wal-Mart's sales would come at the expense of local businesses.
A common conclusion of these studies is that big boxes create little in new retail sales and new jobs. People don't spend more, they spend in different places, and the jobs follow them. This is economic displacement not economic development.
A particularly sophisticated and detailed analysis of the economic impacts of a proposed Wal-Mart in Gunnison, Colorado, concluded that “a Supercenter will likely bring job losses by diverting sales from other firms with greater employment per dollar of sales.
The circumstances in which a large-format discount retailer can function as an employment driver are very narrow, indeed, and those circumstances are simply not present in Gunnison.” I doubt they're present in Geneseo, either.

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